Are you looking for a place to raise a family or for a place to retire?
Southern Oregon has been named as one of the fastest growing and highly desirable places to live in the Country. Everything is here - the Cascades, Siskiyous and Coast Mountain ranges weave their way through the area. Bountiful rivers and streams carve their paths to the Pacific ocean. Four mild seasons are experienced, beginning with a crisp spring of alternating sunny and showering days, early wild flowers, blossoming fruit trees, followed by a warm summer with mostly cool nights, then a long colorful autumn with harvest bursting all at once before a short winter of rain and varying amounts of snow. Extremes of climate are rare. Rainfall runs 20-25 inches increasing to 40 inches nearer the high mountains.
Oregon Caves National Monument, Mt. Mazama and the crystalline blue Crater Lake are here. The 'wild and scenic' Rogue River with its white water and sheer canyons runs through Josephine and Jackson counties. The Umpqua and its tributaries cuts through Douglas county offering breathtaking sights and some of the very best fishing. Travel over to Mt. Ashland for skiing; the Pacific Crest trail for hiking and on to the Natural Bridge (volcano funnels) out of Union Creek.
Southern Oregon is a cultural mecca with the world renown Shakespeare
Festival in Ashland which runs mid-February through October
each year. Many other small theatre groups can be found throughout the
small towns making up the region. Medford is host to the Medford
Jazz Jubilee, Ashland to the Rogue
Valley Blues Festival, which bring fans
from across the country. Just west of Medford is the 'as it was town' of
Jacksonville, an old mining town but now the home of the Peter
Britt Music Festival held every summer from June to September. See world class musicians
and dancers from the world of classical, blue-grass, jazz, pop while enjoying
an outdoor picnic under the stars. Add a nice glass of wine offered by
one of the local
wineries. Driving a bit out of Jacksonville into the Applegate
Valley, you will be rewarded with views of the mountains, wildlife, farms
and ranches and vineyards which are popping up everywhere. One can still
see a surviving one-room school house, picturesque housing of the gold
miners of old, a covered bridge and even find an occasional old boot or
speck of gold in one of the many creeks.